5.5.2012 – 5.5.2012  18 °C

We got going early in the morning as we knew we had a large drive ahead of us… I thought we were driving to Torrey but found out that D had booked us in to Escalante so our couple of hour drive turned into an almost all day drive!!

Anyway, today was a very scenic driving day so we weren’t disappointed that we were driving for most of the day.  We turned north out of Moab and west onto the interstate for 15 miles or so before we turned back south west and headed back down towards the GC! Yep we’ve done a huge circle and are going to end up back near the GC.

As we were driving along I noticed that we were going to drive past a state park called “Goblin State Park” and I made an executive decision that a park that has that good a name must be worth a stop! I had in my mind a woodland, with a nice little stream, lots of dark caves.. northern European style forest!!! Well the Utah version of Goblin State Park did not live up to my expectation even slightly!!!!

The Goblin State Park is so named because in one small valley are these awesome little smurf style rock formations.. They are these mushroom like, bulbous rock formations that cover the floor of the valley! Absolutely not like I had imagined the park but still very different and well worth the half an hour walk around the formations! We also had morning tea in the park and had to have our first ever picnic in the car! Two reasons for our picnic inside the car; a freezing cold wind blowing and no picnic tables!

Next stop on our south western drive was into the Capitol Reef NP. The NP is one that has a few historical value as well as natural beauty. The NP is home to some of the first Mormon farms here in Utah. The Latter Day Saints (LDS) planted many fruit trees and turned some very desolate canyons into lovely green oasis’. It was very pleasant to drive around the canyons and enjoy the greenery (after the starkness of barren rocks.. which is much of this part of Utah) of lovely old trees and grass! I can only imagine the back breaking work the early pioneers must have done to create the irrigation ditches to keep the plants alive! Lunch saw us sit under some very old and lovely cottonwood trees and enjoy a picnic.. Much nicer than our morning tea in the car.

Our day finished with us driving down the scenic by way from Torrey to Escalante. This drive was thru some of the Utah mountains, so it was strange to see plenty of pine trees and mountains again! Arriving into Escalante saw us drive down off the plateau and begin the descent down the Grand Staircase. The staircase is actually miles of mountains that are have coloured rock that appear to gradually ‘step down’ as well as actually start to reduce in altitude!

The little town of Escalante has a really interesting past. It was founded by the Mormons who were sent out to settle the San Juan area to settle and I guess to spread the Mormon gospel. In order to get thru the Grand Staircase the settlers had to blast rock and create a ‘hole in the wall’. This is a pretty good story. 216 people set out to settle the San Juan. It took them forty days to blow a hole in the canyon and to also build a bit of a road on the other side. The part they were blasting was a mile above the other side of the canyon, so the road on the river side was critical! I can only imagine when they finally descended what must have happened. In order to save their wagons they locked the back wheels (with chains) tied 10 men to the back of the wagon and had 6 horses pull at the front… Unbelievably they all made it to the bottom without a fatality. Its amazing what the pioneers in this area did! I read an interesting quote the other day that sums it up pretty well… Only the faithful could make it in this god forsaken country!

Song of the Day– Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven